The Ethiopian irrigation success story was the focus of the webinar organised by the Malabo Montpellier Panel on 14th February 2019, based on their second report, Water-Wise: Smart Irrigation Strategies for Africa, which summarizes the key findings of a systematic analysis of what six African countries at the forefront of progress on irrigation have done right: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Niger and South Africa. The guest speaker and author of this presentation, Mr. Zena Habtewold Biru, Director of the Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate at the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and Focal Person for the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) discussed the case of Ethiopia’s remarkable growth in irrigation expansion over the last years, and the concrete practical steps that the government took to become one of the leading African countries in terms of agricultural irrigation, thereby reducing unemployment, poverty rate and malnutrition. During the seminar Mr. Zena Habtewold Biru discussed the following questions: •What did Ethiopia do differently? •What are the main institutional innovations? •What are the key policy measures? •What are the country’s major programs and interventions? •How and what did it take to mobilize the government to uptake strong regulatory frameworks that govern irrigation and the use of water in agriculture? •What are the practical lessons for other Africans to learn from and to adapt to the context of their own countries?

1. How can Africa achieve an agricultural transformation through
smart irrigation strategies
lessons from Ethiopia’s policy and program interventions
By Zena Habtewold Biru
Director of the Planning-Monitoring and Evaluation of the
Ministry of Agriculture of Ethiopia, and Focal Person for CAADP
February 14, 2019,

2. Content
Introduction
1. Water resource management Policy
2. Small holder irrigation and drainage strategy
3. Institutional framework
4. Programs and projects
5. Achievements to date
6. Lessons learnt
7. Challenges

3. Introduction
• Ethiopia is a country in the horn of Africa and strategically important ,
• The current population increased to 100 million,
• More than 80 % of the population engaged on agriculture,
• Follow agriculture led development industrialization,
• The rural development policy emphasize on development benefits
to the population,
• Agriculture grew at 6.6 % during Growth and transformation I and
• 4,16 % during Growth and Transformation II
• Ethiopian irrigation potential is 11.1 million hectare

4. 1. Water resource management Policy
• Ethiopian Water Resources Management Policy formulated in 1998
• sets guidelines for water resources planning, development and management
• The policy deals with
• water supply and sanitation,
• irrigation, hydropower,
• inland water transport, aquatic resources,
• water for tourism and recreation sub sectors

5.  The irrigation policy was embedded in the water resource management
policy
• emphasize on expanding irrigated agriculture, Improve irrigation water-
use efficiency and increase agricultural production efficiency
• Develop irrigation systems that are technically and financially
sustainable
• Address water logging problems in irrigated area

6. 2. Small holder irrigation and drainage strategy
 Enhancing Policy and institutions
• Enhance legal and institutional frameworks and
• Capacity of government and other intuitions to implement and enforce
 Strengthening research and extension
• Strengthening research critical for the development of sub sector
• Strengthening linkage to extension and services

7. 2. Small holder irrigation and drainage strategy
 Improving scheme planning design construction and management
• Improving all aspects of scheme delivery ,management,
• Performance and capacity of organizations involved
 Promoting technology supply chains
• Promote increased availability, accessibility, and affordability of
equipment, service and finance

8. 3. Institutional famework
3.1 Coordination Committees
 Implementation needs cross sectoral integration
• Federal steering committee
• ensure strong coordination and alignment across key stakeholders,
development partners and the private sector,
• oversee implementation of strategy,
• review progress against interventions and address Federal issues
 National technical committee

9. Coordination Committees continued …
 Regional steering committee
• ensure strong coordination and alignment across key regional
stakeholders,
• oversee implementation of strategy,
• review progress against interventions and address issues to be
addressed at a regional level.
 Regional technical Committee

10. 3.2 Federal and Regional institutions
Federal level
Ministry of water irrigation and electricity
• For design and development of large and medium scale irrigations
• Policy and strategy development ,system development etc
Ministry of agriculture
• for small scale irrigations development
Regional (local government)
• Regional Water bureau, Bureau of Agriculture

11. 4. Programs and projects
 Large and medium scale irrigation projects by government
 Participatory small scale irrigation program IFAD
 Irrigation components in Agriculture Growth program
 Susatinable land management program (component)
 Productive satiate program(component)

12. 5. Achievements to date
 Small holder Irrigation strategy developed
 Water users proclamation enacted
 Water user associations organized
 Mechanization, Rural job creation, small holder horticulture strategies developed
 Manuals and technology packages developed
 Standard of irrigation equipment's
 Training of irrigation Development agents
 Annual Irrigated land converge reached 1,5 million hectare
 Total production by irrigation reached 500 million quintal (horticultural crops)
 Productivity improved 125 quintal per hectare
 Income of the Small holder house hold increased

13. Small Scale Dams

14. Experience sharing

15. Irrigation for Rural youth Job creation
 Rural job creation

16. 6. Lessons learned
 Government commitment
 Institutional support
 Mainstreaming irrigation issues in to development projects
 Scaling up of beset practices (one model farmer backup 3 farmers)
 Continuous training at all levels

17. 7.Challenges
 Capacity limitation
 Supply of irrigation infrastructure
 Input supply
 Marketing

18. AMESEGENALEHU!!
THANK YOU!!